Project Energia 5V Heavy Launch Vehicle

[N_Molson]

Interesting fact : the RD-0146 developped for LOX/LH2 upper stages such as the KVTK or KVRB is the result of a partnership between the design bureau KBkhA, Voronezh and... Pratt & Whitney, USA. Here's a paper that was published in 2006 :

http://www.lpre.de/resources/articles/AIAA-2006-4904_RD0146.pdf

So the RD-0146 "father" is the RL-10, workhorse of the very successful Centaur stage. It seems that while russian (soviet) engineers had quite an expertise with massive LOX/LH2 first stage engines (Energia/Buran RD-0120), they never fully developped a reliable cryogenic space tug engine (they were studies). So in the late 1990's Russia decided to fill the gap and learn from experts rather than struggling with a brand new design. And it seems it worked very well.

The RD-0146 features a nozzle extension that is deployed in flight, like the RL-10, which shouldn't be too hard to animate in Orbiter.

So our engine with nozzle fully deployed :



... and with the extension retracted :

 

[N_Molson]

Spent the day on that engine, could find a few low-res pics of a model, better than nothing but still had to guess a lot, and I'm no rocket engineer ?

 

[GLS]

still had to guess a lot, and I'm no rocket engineer ?

(Cold) liquid goes in the top, hot gas comes out the bottom.

 

[N_Molson]

I think that 2015 russian lunar lander concept will fit right in

LVPK, lunar lander

History of the Ekspress-2000 (Express-2000) satellite platform by Anatoly Zak

www.russianspaceweb.com

... and mostly finished with those RD-0146 engines :

 

[N_Molson]

So quite a setback those last days as I realized my models were oriented the wrong way, so I had to swap axis on all of them... It took some time but now its done.

The other issue is the lighting in Orbiter which for some reason decided to take holidays. I guess it has something to do with normals, but things look as they should in Blender so right now I have no clue :

 

[GLS]

Looks like the material is a mirror...

 

[N_Molson]

I think the only light it reflects is Earth planet glow... (excepted those nosecones, for some reason...). Removing the material entirely has little effect, something is broken but what ?

 

[GLS]

AFAIK you need a material (the texture is optional).
Please post the materials sections at the end of the exported msh file.

 

[N_Molson]

Here you go (that's for the KVRB or "fourth" stage) :

Yes I think there are weird things happening there...

LightGrey should be... light grey paint.
MetalChrome should be dark grey with high specularity (and later maybe reflections).
CarbonFiber is dark grey with low specularity.
SovietGreen is olive "military" paint.
Wires should be bright red, low specularity.
Duct should be white.
MLI should be gold, with high specularity.

Those values below look a lot the same, which would explain the mess we have in Orbiter...

MATERIALS 8
LightGrey
MetalChrome
CarbonFiber
SovietGreen
Wires
Duct
LightGrey.001
MLI.001
MATERIAL LightGrey
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL MetalChrome
0.198 0.198 0.198 1.000
0.773 0.773 0.773 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 20.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL CarbonFiber
0.119 0.119 0.119 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
0.313 0.313 0.313 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL SovietGreen
0.800 0.800 0.800 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL Wires
0.800 0.800 0.800 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL Duct
0.800 0.800 0.800 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL LightGrey.001
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
MATERIAL MLI.001
0.800 0.461 0.064 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 10.000
0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
TEXTURES 0

 

[GLS]

Yeah, there still needs to be some fine tuning of the materials, but I don't see anything wrong.
Can you "run" the mesh thru Shipedit? I there you can run a sanity check of the mesh, and also recalculate the normals.

 

[N_Molson]

Thanks a lot ! Generating normals in Shipedit fixed it !

Looks much better :



Now it would save a lot of time if Blake's exporter could do that.

 

[GLS]

So the problem is either in blender or in the export plugin.

 

[N_Molson]

OK I "treated" all the meshes, back in buisness ! Much better ! So I'll have to add a "shipedit" step after exporting a mesh, I guess I can live with that.

Also calculated the PMI and cross sections of the various stages with ShipEdit, can't hurt...

 

[N_Molson]

Back to that KVRB stage, wiring in progress...

 

[N_Molson]

Nearly done with the KVRB wiring for now, I'll add the gimbal actuators for the nozzles and then I move up to the MOB-DM.



What is the MOB-DM ? Nothing more than the venerable Blok-D designed in the 1960's for the N1 lunar rocket and largely used by Proton those 40 last years. There are many Blok-D versions, I think here we will stick to the orignal one, after all designed for lunar missions. It will use hypergolic propellants and its main role will be to perform the LOI burn. I'm not sure if a T&D manoeuver will be necessary, probably not. After the LOI burn, the 20-tons PTK is released and should have enough fuel to find the lander left in orbit by a previous launch and dock. The PTK has enough propellant to perform the TEI burn on its own.

 

[GLS]

It will use hypergolic propellants

I thought the Blok-D was LOX/kerosene...?

 

[N_Molson]

It seems so... hope it won't boil off too much during the lunar trip ?

 

[Gargantua2024]

The Blok-D stage was originally built as a lunar orbit insertion stage for the Soviet N1-L3 project, I don't think the kerolox would boil off much during a lunar trip

 

[GLS]

The Blok-D stage was originally built as a lunar orbit insertion stage for the Soviet N1-L3 project, I don't think the kerolox would boil off much during a lunar trip

It would also do much of the landing burn for the LK.

 

[N_Molson]

Yes it was also called the "crasher stage". Now the lander project for this mission will manage the descent on his own, but is much heavier than the LK (20 tons). So one thing into another, I think that Blok-D + payload (PTK or Lander, 20 tons each) will have just the right amount of Dv to perform the LOI burn.